What does "Myanmar" mean?by Naing Tinnyuntpu

"Myan" | မြန် | myan2 | means fast.

"Mar" | ြာ | ma2 | means hard, firm, robust, or tough.

Another meaning for "Mar" | ြာ | ma2 is 'healthy' as in ကျန်းြာ | kjan3-ma2.

For a country and its people, the more appropriate word is 'strong' as in သန်ြာ | thun2-ma2.

Therefore, "Myanmar" | မြန်ြာ | myan2-ma2 | is 'Fast and Strong' people. "Myanmar zaga" |

မြန်ြာစကား | myan2-ma2 za1-ga3 | meaning Myanmar language is the language spoken by those

people, and "Myanmar Pyi" | မြန်ြာမြည် | myan2-ma2-pyi2 | or MYANMAR when used as areference to the country can be translated as 'The Land of the Fast and the Strong'.

To English speakers, it may sound odd, and grammatically incorrect to use both the name of the peopleand the country as MYANMAR. To a Burmese speaker, it does not seem that way. People in thiscountry are used to seeing soccer scores in the Burmese language newspapers such as this:

မြန်ြာ | MYANMAR: 0

အင်ဒုိနီးရာှး | INDONESIA: 0

No Burmese had raised the eyebrows and debated -- at least not from a pure language standpoint -- as itseems nothing grammatically wrong with this usage in the Burmese language.

Reference to the word "Myanmar" as a language appears to have dated back to the 11th Century Bagan

Civilization. In Mya Zedi | မြစစတီ | Mya1 Zay2-De2 | Pagoda in Bagan, Prince Yazakumar |

ရာဇကြုာရ် | Ya2-Za1-Ku1-Ma2, the son of King Kyansittha | ကျန်စစ်သား | Kjan2-Sit-Tha3 | had

erected what is now a tourist attraction known as Mya Zedi Pillar Script | ရာဇကြုာရ်စကျာကစ်ာ| Ya2-Za1-Ku1-Ma2 kjout sa2 | engraved in ြွန်၊ မြန်ြာ၊ ြါဠိ၊ ြျူ | Mon, Myanmar, Pali, and Pyuscripts.

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The usage of the word မြန်ြာ | "Myanmar" as a reference to the people or civilization can be seen ina traditional saying that goes back to generations. It says:

မြန်ြာအစ တစကာင်းက | myan2-ma2 a-sa1 da1-goun3 ga1 meaning the origin of "Myanmar"is a place called "Dagaung". It is not clear if the saying refers to the Rakhine ethnic people |

ရခုိင်လူြျို း | Ya1-Khine2 lu2 myo3 | with their version of history dating back to 3325 BC startingfrom King Marayu, and the migration that took place in the present day Chittagong by the Mranma orMarma people in the same region. (According to Royal Chronicle of the Konbaung Dynasty, legendaryTagaung Kindom was founded in 850 BCE.)

The third edition of Burmese to Burmese dictionary published in 2013 by the Myanmar LanguageCommission in Naypyitaw gives two definitions of the word "Myanmar". One refers to all the ethnicpeople in general who have been living in this land for generations. The second definition refers to"Bamar", which is further defined as one of such ethnic people who speak Tibetan-Burmese language.See the exact words below:

မြန်ြာ၊ / ြျန်ြာ၊ ဗြာ/ - ၁၊ မြန်ြာနုိင်ငံတင်ွ အစဉအ်ဆက် စနထုိင်ခဲ့ကကစသာ တိုင်းရင်းသားြျားကို မခုံစခါစသာအြည။် ၂၊ ဗြာ။

ဗြာ၊ - တဗိကမ်ြန်ြာ အုြ်စုဝင် ဘာသာစကား တစ်ြျို းကို စမြာစသာမြန်ြာတိုင်းရင်းသားတစ်ြျို း။

Although the United Nations (UN) recognizes the name "Myanmar", some English-educated Burmeseliving abroad and a handful of foreign governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such asHuman Rights Watch group, as well as some foreign media prefer to use the colonial name "Burma"that the British gave when they colonized the country for more than 100 years. The reason is mostlypolitical, and partly because for people like the English-educated Burmese living abroad, they are soused to the name "Burma" without any association of the word with the colonial past; "Burma"certainly sounds more modern and Westernized than "Myanmar".

Unlike in the Western countries, names carry significant meaning and pride for the Burmese people. Itis not unusual for the Burmese people to change their personal names with the advice of the astrologersto bring health, fortune, and good luck. The official name change of the country from "Burma" to"Myanmar" in 1989 was not recognized by the Western powers and English speaking countries such asthe United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The main opposition party(NLD) did not support the change.

For the unbiased perspectives, historians should take note that it took place after the 1988 massdemonstrations and unrest, but before the 1990 general elections. The refusal to use the name"Myanmar" was justified by some non-supporters with the argument that the military governmentknown as SLORC that came to power on 18 September 1988 and still in power after the 1990 elections

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was not "official" and a legal entity. Today, NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi is a member of theparliament. Politics still exist but more amicable, and there is an increasing trend towards the usage"Myanmar" in English speaking countries.

The name given by the British during the colonial days was neither "Bamar" or "Myanmar". Here is anexperiment and make your own conclusions. Randomly select at least 30 samples of English educatedBurmese, and see if they can pronounce "Burma" correctly the way the British or the Americans do.For a Burmese, "Burma" is a difficult word to pronounce as it has unnatural "r" sound in it. The closest

spelling in Burmese is Baa-Maa | ဘားြား | Ba3-Ma3.

But then, history, including the name of the country, is written by the winner of wars -- Anglo-Burmese

wars in this case, and not according to Burmese King Mindon | ြင်းတန်ုးြင်းတရားကကးီ | Min3-dome3-Min3 ta1-ya3 ji3 who ruled the Kingdom of Myanmar (yes, Myanmar in Burmese language)that included the ethnic people. The Burmese version of Myanmar history was recorded in Royal

Chronicles known as "Myanmar Yarzawin Kyan Mya" | မြန်ြာရာဇဝင်ကျြ်းြျား | Myan2-Ma2 Ya2-Za1-Win2 Kjan3 Mya3, as well as in Ayedawbon chronicles known as Myanmar Min Mya Ayedawbon

| မြန်ြာြင်းြျားအစရးစတာြံု် | Myan2-Ma2 Min3 Mya3 A-yay3-dau2-bone2 and in Hmannan

Yazawin | ြှန်နန်းြဟာရာဇဝင်စတာက်ကးီ | Hmun2-Nun3 Ma1-Ha2 Ya2-Za1-Win2 Dau2 Ji3 with

records dating back to periods earlier than King Pyinbya ( 817-876 CE) | ြျဉ်မြား | Pyin2-Bya3 | ofBagan civilization.

In those days, the British were known for their exploits and divide and rule strategies in the empirewhere the sun never sets. It is not inconceivable that the colonial masters had intended on dividing the"Bamar" from the rest of the "Myanmar" ethnic races. Although the British could have initially adoptedthe name from Burma's (Myanmar's) neighbor Indians or from the Portuguese mercenary Filipe de

Brito e Nicote | ငဇင်ကာ | Nga1-Zin2-Ka2 (who made an earlier contact and was executed in 1613 bythe Burmese) with variations closer to "Bamar" than "Myanmar", no correction was made afterestablishing diplomatic relations with Myanmar Kings. "Myanmar" to "Bamar' could be analogous to"Soviet Union" to "Russia".

A number of Burmese people including Burma's Independence Hero General Aung San |

ဗုိလ်ချုြစ်အာင်ဆနး် | Bo2-joat Oun2-Sun3 who grew up in the British Burma casually used the word

"Burma" in English and "Bamar Pyi" | ဗြာမြည် | Ba1-Ma2-Pyi2 in Burmese. Afterall, collegestudent Ko Aung San was the editor of the English Newspaper "New Burma ". As an author, AUNG

SAN referred to the Burmese ethnic race as "Burman" in English and "Bamar" | ဗြာ | Ba1-Ma2 inBurmese language.

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During his struggle for independence, General Aung San used the term "Independence of Burma" |

ဗြာလွ့တလ်ြ်စရး | ba1-mah1 loot-lut-yay3 | in his speeches and writing. The army he led to fight the

British at the age of 27 was known in English as Burma Independence Army (BIA) in English and

ဗြာလွ့တလ်ြ်စရး တြ်ြစတာ် | ba1-ma1 loot-lut-yay3 tut-ma1-dau2 in Burmese.

However, Bogyoke Aung San was careful to use the word "Myanmar" in 1947 Pinlone (PangLong)

Conference | ြင်လံုညီလာခံကကးီ | pin2-lone2 nyi2-la2-khan2 ji3 when he met with the ethnic leadersand persuaded them to join the Union. Here is the excerpt of General Aung San's Pinlone Conferencedinner speech.

ကျန်စတာ် သညက်ိစုရာကလ်ာတဲ့ကစိ္ နားလညတ်ာ တခု ရိှြါတယ်။

ဘာလဲဆိုရင် မြန်ြာမြည် ကကးီ လွတလ်ြ် စစချင်တယ်၊

ညညီတွစ်စချင်တယ်၊ ကကးီြွားစစချင်တယ်၊ သညဟ်ာြါဘ။ဲ

တိုင်းမြည် လွတလ်ြ်စအာင်၊ ညညီတွစ်အာင်၊ ကကးီြွားစအာင်

ဘယ်လိလုုြ်ရြလဲ ဆိုတာကို လွန်ခ့ဲတဲ့ ၁၀ နှစ်စလာကက် စပြီး

ကကို းစားလာြါတယ်။ စနာင်လဲ ကကို းစားြါဦးြယ်၊ လံုးလံုး လွတလ်ြ်

တဲ့ကစ္ိ ပြီးမြတသ်ည် အထိ ကကို းစားြါြယ။်

Reference: ဗုိလ်ချုြ်စအာင်ဆန်းြိန့ခွ်န်းြျား၊ (စါ-၁၈၈) ၊ ရန်ကန်ု၊ စာစြဗိြာန်၊ ၁၉၇၁။

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When the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL) Party | ဖကဆ်စ်ဆန့က်ျင်စရး မြညသ်ူ့လွတလ်ြ်စရး အဖွဲ့ချုြ် (ဖဆြလ) | Pfa1-Hsa1-Pa1-La1 led by Aung San was drafting the

constitution for the independent sovereign state just a few months before he was assassinated, a formal

name for ဗြာမြည် | Ba1-Ma2-Pyi2 known as "Pyi-Htoun-Su Myanmar Naing-Ngan" |

မြညစ်ထာင်စုမြန်ြာနုိင်ငံ | Pyi2-Htoun2-Su1 Myan2-Ma2 Nine2-Ngan2 | in Burmese was conceived forthe first time. From the Burmese language standpoint, "Pyi-Htoun-Su Bamar Naing-Ngan" with the use

of "Bamar" | ဗြာ | Ba1-Ma2 would not have been acceptable, as it would have excluded the ethnicpeople.

Some might argue that the reason why "Myanmar" was chosen over "Bamar" was because the later wasnot a formal word, and that the choice had nothing to do with the ethnic people. It should be pointedout that during the Japanese occupation with the puppet government led by Dr. Ba Maw as the head of

state (1943-1945), the country was called State of Burma, or simply "Bamar" | ဗြာ | Ba1-Ma2 inBurmese. This should dispel the mistaken belief even among the educated Burmese people today that

the word "Bamar" | ဗြာ | Ba1-Ma2 in the Burmese language was never used as a formal word and

in an "official" capacity, and that it is just a colloquial equivalent of the word "Myanmar" | မြန်ြာ |Myan2-Ma2.

Most people today use "Bamar" as a colloquial word, and since "Bamar" is a subset of "Myanmar", theword is also used interchangeably with "Myanmar" to describe the majority Burmese people. However,the word "Bamar" is never used interchangeably with the rest of the ethnic people such as Kachin,

Kayin, Chin, and Shan. They are known as "Myanmar ethnic people" | မြန်ြာတိုင်းရင်းသားြျား |

Myan2-Ma2 Tine3-yin3-tha3 mya3, not "Bamar ethnic people" | ဗြာတိုင်းရင်းသားြျား | Ba1-Ma2Tine3-yin3-tha3 mya3. It is fair to say that the independence movements initiated by the "Bamar"people were joined by some other "Myanmar" ethnic people only in the later time, and there was a needto use a more appropriate term. The Pinlone (Panglong) Agreement on 12th February 1947, for example,included the signatures of the interim Burmese government, Shan, Kachin, and Chin representatives.Karen (Kayin) people only sent observers.

General Aung San who graduated with distinctions in Burmese and Pali in his final year of high-schoolused both "Myanmar" and "Bamar" in Burmese literary form as a reference to the country. He was the

author of the article titled ဗြာလွ့တလ်ြ်စရး အစရးစတာြံု် | Ba1-Ma1 Loot-lut-yay3 A-yay3-dau2-

bone2 (Chronicles of Burma's Independence) in the special issue of ဗြာစ့ခတ ် | Ba1-Ma1 Khit(Burma's Age) newspaper on August 1st. 1943. That was the day the Japanese declared the

"Independence" of "Bamar" | ဗြာ | Ba1-Ma2. On 27 November 1937 Special edition of Mandalay

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Thuriya | ြန္စလးသူရိယ | Mun3-da1-lay3 Thu2-ri1-ya1 | paper, he used the term "Myanmar Naing-

Ngan" | မြန်ြာနုိင်ငံ | Myan2-ma2 Nine2-Ngan2. See Below.

စကျာင်းသားဝတ္ရား

စရးသူ၊ စြာင်စအာင်ဆန်း၊ ဘီ-စအ

မြန်ြာနုိင်ငံ လံုးဆိုငရ်ာ၊ သြဂ္အသင်းဥကဌ္

One can reasonably deduce that if "Bamar Pyi" | ဗြာမြည် | Ba1-Ma2-Pyi2 | refers to "Burma", thenthe name "Burma" stands for the country of the majority Burmese ethnic people known as "Bamar" |

ဗြာ | Ba1-Ma2. It was either an oversight, considered unimportant, or deliberately left untouchedby the authors of the first Constitution. The name of the country after the independence on January 4 th,1948 was to be known as "the Union of Burma" in English.

Perhaps, the status quo was because the word "Burma" was the only choice when negotiating for theterms of independence with the British. Moreover, the territories under the British Burma alreadycovered all the ethnic regions (but reluctant by the British to give independence concurrently.) Noknown historical records existed on the desire and debates coming from Burma's patriots andpoliticians at that time to introduce a new vocabulary in the English language; such debates would havefurther delayed the independence.

As for the usage of မြန်ြာ |"Myanmar" for the country in the Burmese langauge, it was less of acontroversy. Just as the United States is referred to as 'The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave'in The Star-Sprangled Banner, 'Myanmar' refers to anything relating to the 'Fast and the Strong' people.

On the other hand, the usage of ဗြာ | "Bamar" per the dictionary definition today is limited to themain racial group who speak the Burmese Language as the mother tongue.

As such, လူဝင်ြှကကးီကကြ်စရးနှင့် အြျို းသားြှတြံု်တင်စရး ဦးစီးဌာန (လဝက) | Myanmar Immigration

& National Registration Department | (La1-Wa1-Ka1) identifies the race of a person as " ဗြာ + ြွန်" |"Bamar + Mon" if her father is a Burmese and mother is a Mon. If she marries a Burmese, her children

will be identified as " ဗြာ + ဗြာ ြွန်" | "Bamar + Bamar Mon". In terms of nationality, all of them

will be မြန်ြာ | Myanmar. In this way, various ethnic groups in this country who speak more than100 different languages and dialects can maintain their racial identity, and yet still be united in 'TheLand of the Fast and the Strong' that they call home.

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The usage of မြန်ြာမြည် | "Myanmar Pyi" in place of the original ဗြာမြည် | "Bamar Pyi" in theNational Anthem thus reflects the inclusion of all the ethnic people. Putting aside the politics, "AungSan of Burma", I am sure, would have no objection if he had lived to see the independence of "Burma".

Posted on Asia Pearl Travels website.http://www.asiapearltravels.com/language/intro_burmese.php#meaning-of-myanmar February 2015

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